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Is there a single right way to run a home care agency? We sure don’t think so. That’s why we’re interviewing home care leaders across the industry and asking them tough questions about the strategies, operations, and decisions behind their success. Join host Miriam Allred, veteran home care podcaster known for Home Care U and Vision: The Home Care Leaders’ Podcast, as she puts high-growth home care agencies under the microscope to see what works, what doesn’t, and why. Get ready to listen, learn, and build the winning formula for your own success. In the Home Care Strategy Lab, you are the scientist.
Miriam Allred (00:51)
Here we go. Live at HCAOA. I'm sitting across from Connor Sweeney, the founder and CEO of Baba. Connor, it's great to be here with you.
Connor Sweeney (01:05)
Likewise, Miriam. And also, that music was really good. The intro music, I could listen to that for a while.
Miriam Allred (01:10)
It's yeah, it's a little pick me up before we get going. ⁓ You and I got acquainted just a few weeks ago and through a mutual contact, I think Becky Real, shout out to her for introducing us. ⁓ I'm fascinated by what you're doing and how you're thinking about things. And so I thought, let's bring you on to learn more about what you're doing and what you're thinking about. So most people don't know you. Let's start with a good old fashioned introduction. Tell everyone a little bit about your background, your personal story and what's led you to where you are today.
Connor Sweeney (01:37)
For sure. And thank you so much for having me. This is like the perfect setting ⁓ at the conference. Already have met so many cool people and I'm excited to have this conversation. ⁓ But yeah, so I'm Connor Sweeney. I'm the founder of Baba. I grew up in Delaware. Small family, grandparents were super involved because it was just my mom raising my sister and I. ⁓ And, you know, I was pretty lucky. I got to be an engineer from school. I was on the early team of a couple pretty interesting and successful tech startups, but
⁓ A couple of years ago, a lot of my life changed after my grandmother had a stroke on New Year's two years ago. And I, at the time, was working in the creator economy with a really cool marketplace and living in Los Angeles. And I ended up moving back to Delaware to be a part-time caregiver for her ⁓ because that stroke, she had a stroke and it left her with a Wernicke's aphasia, which essentially means the part of her brain that was damaged is a part that controls communication. And so...
We think she understands maybe 50 % of what's said to her and she speaks mostly in like gibberish or it's called jargon. ⁓ And I was lucky that I was in a place where I could work remotely at that time and really try to be a part of that rehab process. And what I realized was that it was so frustrating how limited some of the tech was that was available for her, particularly the speech therapy side. ⁓ And so from that engineering background, I kept
tinkering and building her little AI tools because I just wanted them for her. And so at one point, ⁓ I cloned her voice from old voicemails. And I essentially made a speech therapist for her because I read that if you do speech therapy with yourself functionally, like you can hear how you used to talk, then it makes it a little bit easier. ⁓ little things like that to me felt like the bare minimum and they really made a difference for her. And so I realized...
Miriam Allred (03:24)
So cool.
Connor Sweeney (03:33)
You know, the creator economy was fun, but there was a real need here that I don't think, and I'm curious your thoughts on this. I feel like most people in this space usually only come to appreciate it after they realize how important it is, you know, from a family member having an illness or diagnosis or an accident or being a family caregiver themselves. And I was just like, you know, the opportunity space here is so cute to actually make her healthcare journey and a lot of other people's healthcare journey, a lot less about the paperwork and the following up and the waiting on hold.
so that they can actually focus on the human part of it.
Miriam Allred (04:05)
Well, I look at you and I look at both of us. We're not quite like the sandwich generation, but I think it's amazing that you stepped up to go and take care of your grandma. guess I don't know all the circumstances, but where you asked to, it like intrigue? How did it come about that you were the one to go and take care of her? Again, to uproot in LA and go and be there for her.
Connor Sweeney (04:24)
I
mean, I don't want to take all the credit. Like my mom was also very involved ⁓ and my sister wasn't in college, so she wasn't as able to. But, you know, it was definitely a voluntary thing, right? And I think one of the things that made it was, you know, kind of put it in stark full circle mode was, you know, I would go to her house because she still lives in the same house. We lived in that house for a little bit after my parents separated when I was a kid. And we found the old phonetics workbooks, you know, these yellow page books that are like helping you pronounce, learn how to read, right?
that she, like my grandmother had been using with me like 20 years ago. And I'm sitting with her in her house at the same table we did it. And I'm like now teaching her how to like say fire truck, right? And she's like in her seventies and I'm like, this is so crazy. ⁓ So yeah, I think I was just lucky that I was in a place like financially and with work that I could do that. ⁓ But it's crazy that it took a team of like my mom who's a professional and me who's an engineer and her living husband, you know, my grandfather.
like three of us triaging care for somebody was still like an overwhelming effort, which is crazy to think about people that don't have that available.
Miriam Allred (05:27)
But I love that your mind like instantly turned to AI, like you're there taking care of her. And obviously there's just like a lot of personal connection, human touch right then and there. But you're also like, wait, her speech, wait, her condition, where can we supplement with technology? And with your background, was like kind of a natural fit, but you're like, let's record her voice and start building some agents that then she can learn from. I don't know that I'd heard that before that they are more receptive to learning.
from their own voice playback? Did you know that? Did you learn that? Where did that come from?
Connor Sweeney (05:59)
I was originally a scientist, you know, deep in the weeds, I was doing like synthetic biology work. So like, I'm no stranger to like reading scientific literature and like diving into this. so obviously I had never read about the brain or any of what her condition required, but there's literature that says, you know, if you can hear how you used to, she essentially has to relearn how to speak. And although I will say the part of the brain that controls cursing is different than the part that controls communication. So she can still curse, all right. But, ⁓
Yeah, I just read that hearing how you use the sound helps you. And I found some really other crazy stuff. Like, did you know dementia is higher in people that are deaf? Because the parts of the brain that are so important to keep active as you get older are related to like cognition. So like if you don't have as many conversations with people, you can't use that part of the brain. use it or lose it, right? ⁓ So lots of like crazy things from that.
Miriam Allred (06:53)
That sense. And so you said like early tinkering with her, tell us like, fast forward, like what did you tinker with build discover there that then led you to like, Hey, I want to replicate this, build something, do something about it.
Connor Sweeney (07:06)
For sure. I think the first thing I realized was like dealing with her healthcare. And I think this is the case for most family caregivers is it's not that any individual thing is overwhelming, right? Like we all know how to call doctor if we're able-bodied and we're cognizant. It's the fact that you have to do that and wait on hold while you also have to figure out like what is a pre-authorization? What's a biosimilar? Why did my insurance company reject this claim that supposedly was a routine appointment?
and do it all at once and everything feels urgent because someone you care about is like suffering and you have like a full time life. And I was like, this is crazy that I'm becoming a secretary for my family and that I don't even have the tools to do this properly. And so that's what led to Baba. I ended up, the thing I was working on at the time I sold and went full time on Baba and assembled, we're a team of five now in New York, some of the best engineers and investors and designers from healthcare.
to build the ultimate tool to solve the problem of handling all this by yourself. Like, health care is so much about having a headache. And what Baba is is an AI assistant that actually connects you to the people that know how to solve and navigate that world. So these are folks called advocates. ⁓ The first version of Baba that we made was just an AI companion. So it was a really personality-filled. ⁓
companion that you could call on the phone, talk to like a normal person, you could text it all day long, it's just a phone number you would save in your phone. And we have thousands of people that you rely on that for companionship, so they're less lonely for answers if they like use it like Google on the phone, right? That prey to it, that vent to it. And folks across assisted living, nursing homes, people aging at place that really found value in having someone always available to them. But what we realized was that
So many of the requests from Baba that, you know, we would hear them, you know, ask us about like, Hey, can Baba also do this for me? Were things like scheduling and getting the pre-auth set up and dealing with insurance denials. And those are all things that you need humans in the for. So I almost feel like I've come to this as like the opposite of most people where it's like, I started with so bullish on the AI, right? And I was underestimating how much you need the human in the loop. Like you need that high touch sort of environment. ⁓
And so that's why we expanded it and we have this team of doctors now and nurses and duals and social workers. So for those tasks that Baba can't yet do, this like, you know, AI companion can't do, let us match you to an advocate who's a human who can do that for you.
Miriam Allred (09:42)
Okay, I want to so version one is still in place like that's still being leveraged because I want to ask some questions about that and then we'll get into the advocate side of things so my initial my mind goes to these seniors are Using a phone to call this number to then have a conversation with an AI first question. Do they know it's AI? Yes
Connor Sweeney (10:03)
We make that very clear in the onboarding and in the first call to make that clear.
Miriam Allred (10:08)
And what are their initial hesitations, reservations, questions? They're not tech savvy, let alone accustomed to AI like we are. So what is that initial hurdle? Is there an initial hurdle and what are the things that you've heard that they say as hesitation?
Connor Sweeney (10:27)
For sure. think, you know, it's funny, we initially thought that this would be something in the V1, right, which was just a companion. ⁓ We thought this would be something that family caregivers would want for their loved ones. You know, I saw how lonely my grandfather was after his life companion and my grandmother couldn't speak anymore. And I was like, I wish he had someone he could vent to and open up to a little bit more than he would open up to the family. Because, you know, he still wanted to kind of like have this emotional resolve in front of us. And he was super lonely. So I wanted that for him. ⁓
And I was like, well, like maybe my mom or I would buy it, like sandwich generation adjacent people would buy it for them. What we saw overwhelmingly was that seniors were signing themselves up. ⁓ And they were super on board with the AI. You know, they got it, they asked to rename it, they would change the voice, they want like a custom friend. And then we also would work with nursing homes and assisted living. That was a little bit more educational. What we saw was that after they gave it like three or four calls, they saw retention drastically improved because
They were like, this thing remembers what I talked about. It can crack jokes. It adjusts the pace of speed to what I sound like. ⁓ For a lot of these people that are just maybe under-socialized, having that by itself moves a needle. And I don't mean to ramble at you, but I continue to do it. That's fine. Having conversational AI that's built responsibly, that has emotional resonance, that's not going to go try to become like
you know, a sex bot like MetaAI is trying to do or Elon's like Twitter is trying to do, is so important for mental health because loneliness is a killer. And that's why in the first version, you know, we actually have partnerships with like Johns Hopkins University with, you know, professors at MIT who see the health and medical claims impact of responsibly built conversational AI. You know, we're literally doing a clinical study with Hopkins because...
they believe that this is a tool that will improve outcomes, particularly for folks who might be rural, right? People who might be disadvantaged to the extent they don't have a smartphone. Because with Baba, you don't even need a smartphone. You don't even need Wi-Fi, right? You just need a phone service on a flip phone, a landline, or a smartphone if you want.
Miriam Allred (12:39)
Yeah.
And what you're solving is, is like loneliness. Like we talk a lot about that in home care is like loneliness is like a driving force for these seniors. How do you solve loneliness? This is an option. This is a solution. And what I wanted to ask about is yes, this AI remembers these conversations is stored, then trained. if they're talking about say baseball or like a passion or a hobby,
They can ask you questions. can answer questions, like give us a little bit of a taste of like what these conversations look like and how, customized and how trained up this AI can.
Connor Sweeney (13:14)
For sure. I want to emphasize that they're private to start. You know what mean? Like this is not an AI sent from the doctor's office or from your, like not even from your home care agency. Like you sign up yourself. ⁓ Usually we have some agencies that, you know, will pay for it as like a, you know, an offering for these folks, but it's still their own, which I think is important. You want someone in your corner that is for you. ⁓ But the conversations really span, Miriam. Like, you know, some people ⁓ pray. We see a lot of prayer.
We see a lot of people that do conversational role play and like, ⁓ hey, I don't feel like my son is hearing what I'm trying to communicate. Wow. Like, can you help me either practice or maybe sometimes like, what would you recommend I say to him so that he understands like, I don't want to leave my home. ⁓ We see people use it like Google, right? Like where they're like, ⁓ we almost ran an ad that was like, well, Alexa will tell you it's raining. Baba will ask you if you remembered your umbrella. know, like it'll, it can like intelligently tell you kind of like what you want to know. ⁓
people that love Stephen Hawking. So then Baba will text them, did you see this new Netflix show that is inspired by this book or whatever that's relevant to them? ⁓ But I think even more practically, too, we're really good with behavioral nudges in this like pure companion product because you can tell Baba, ⁓ know, remind me to take my metformin in the morning at nine every day or.
And it will. You can set reminders for medications ⁓ dynamically, right? So if you have a medication that needs to be taken every 12 hours and you forgot your morning dose, it will adjust, you know?
Miriam Allred (14:42)
How does that piece work though, because this is all phone based? Is that a phone call reminder notification? How does the notification piece work?
Connor Sweeney (14:49)
Yeah, and that's what's so nice and so seamless. like a conversation you have over text, you can continue over phone and vice versa, just like, you know, like a human. ⁓ But you can, you can say, Hey, I want you to call me for this reminder. I want you to text me for this reminder. Casually, you can text, delete that reminder, et cetera. ⁓ But you know, an example would be like, ⁓ Baba remind me to tell Dr. Watson at my occupational therapy appointment next Thursday that this exercise is still hurting my knee.
Or remind me to call my daughter on the way to the doctor's because I always forget and she wants to hear what the doctor says. ⁓ Things like that surprisingly do move the needle.
Miriam Allred (15:24)
I honestly, my mind is like spinning on like my usage of AI and what it looks like. And it's a lot like day to day and I'm typing in, you know, it's kind of like the Google, but like from a business lens for me personally. I wonder if I created like a companion, a friend, like what that would do for me. I guess my mind is going into like my personal life and the relationships that I have, but wow, if I could customize an AI to be like my friend to be.
My confidant, my advocate, I don't know. My mind just races of what would that look like for me personally? But that's the beauty. It's so customized for every single person. It can be whatever you want it to be. Like you just said, daily prayer versus conversational, like practicing with the sun. The opportunity, they're endless and it's infinitely customizable, which makes it so powerful.
Connor Sweeney (16:17)
for sure. I think I don't want to claim I discovered fire. We made it in a really accessible form function over the phone for older adults. We have pretty sophisticated agents and stuff going on behind the scenes to make sure that it incorporates best practices for de-escalation of situations that are maybe concerning. We have alerts that some folks elect to have a caregiver in the loop. So if those conversations start to
have changes in slurring or pauses, or they start talking about self-harm or coupane or dizziness, then they can get a caregiver alerted in the moment with a text. But ⁓ I think it's so funny that AI is this crazy powerful thing. we were initially like, my gosh, our users, think this was their first exposure to AI for most of them. And so to them, this was like this crazy powerful companion device.
But it's so funny that we kept coming back to, we need a human that understands healthcare to actually fully realize the vision of helping these people. Because at this point in their lives, a lot of these people, they don't need someone to answer their emails for them. ⁓ They need someone to wait on hold with their doctor or figure out why they are stuck with a bill they didn't expect. ⁓ Which are things that like, ChatGDP cannot do even close to today.
Miriam Allred (17:40)
Yeah,
which is like, can only take you so far and then the human has to be involved. So talk about these advocates. Baba has built a network of professionals, of advocates that these people then can tap into. Like talk about building that network and what that looks like. And then yeah, how the transition to a real person.
Connor Sweeney (18:01)
For
sure. Yeah, I mean, I'll start with the second half. So the transition is super simple. you know, the vision and what we're seeing people, the way we're seeing people use it is, know, Baba the companion, it's this phone number that you can save. And anyone actually can just text hi to this phone number right now. It's like 833-355-2676 or whatever. It's on the website. And you can get on board and start having that relationship or, you know, companionship with Baba. But a lot of these people don't even realize that advocacy exists.
that it's covered by Medicare and a lot of Medicare Advantage plans, and that it's so broad in the tasks that it covers. so what we see is, you know, someone will complain to Baba about this thing that they're having a problem with, the companion, and then Baba can say, well, you realize that we could connect you with someone who can help you with this. Or they come in and they realize they have this acute burning need for an advocate, and then we can also connect them that way. ⁓ But we see Baba as this kind of like,
pocket companion through your healthcare journey, where for some periods of time, for some tasks, yeah, we need to connect you to this human advocate and you'll have that period and they'll help you hopefully. then you kind of, you know, or less, you don't need that advocate. And instead, Bob is helping you with reminders and nudges and, you know, maybe just being a friend when you need it. And then sometimes you elevate back up to the advocate level. So I think that's really powerful when you think about older adults in general, every six months, they could be in a new physical situation, right? They could be.
going from home to a nursing home to a home health. ⁓ And the people around them could be different. And so having VABBA as this through line is a really powerful concept.
Miriam Allred (19:36)
So let's get to that part of you all have built this network of partners. Is that universally available and does that make sense in every instance? You think of like healthcare is very localized and there may be partners or support that they need in a specific region, state, et cetera. Like how does your network work and how do people tap into it?
Connor Sweeney (19:57)
Yeah, that's a really good call out. We have folks that are all across the country, because we have users all across the country. And so when we realize the need for this advocate and doctor network on the doctor side, you need licenses in different states to do the ⁓ initial intake. It doesn't replace your PCP or anything like that. It's just making sure that you're eligible for this and that your insurance is going to cover it. And then you're right, we have these advocates all over the place because figuring out how to connect you to the right people in Western Montana.
which is one of the AAAs that we work with, is totally different than navigating Long Island's healthcare web of whatever is going on out there. So that's just something that we are gonna continue to grow ⁓ so that we can serve every person.
Miriam Allred (20:40)
OK. And earlier in the conversation, you referenced some of these partners that you worked with, MIT, Stanford, et cetera. How do you get involved with those people, and then how do you get them on board with something like this? Because they're not only credibility, but they're also really smart, really passionate, really interested in solving these types of issues. What did that kind of relationship look like, and how they help propel you?
Connor Sweeney (21:06)
For sure. I think, first of all, I'm so lucky to get to work with people like that because I came into this new. I wasn't even remotely in this industry two years ago. And so I want to acknowledge that I'm kind of standing on the shoulders of lot of people that put entire careers into this. ⁓ And so I want to make sure that we're doing it in the right way. This is a serious problem when you're dealing with people's health, particularly the older individuals. So you need serious partners. ⁓
One of those individuals is Professor John Gruber at MIT. He is the chair of the economics department. ⁓ I went to MIT undergrad. I didn't know him actually, but he led a bunch of classes that my friend spoke really highly of, so I just cold emailed him. He was one of the main authors of the Affordable Care Act, so ACA. ⁓ He has written extensively recently about one of his quotes is like, America is becoming Florida. We have so many people that are getting older. There is like,
no mathematical way that we have enough labor to take care of this. Nobody wants to go to nursing homes like this is a system that's about to collapse and nerds on weight. So he's super interested in writing a lot about the solutions like what we just talked about, which is why I think he was so interested in this and became a formal advisor. ⁓ With Hopkins, similarly, I just cold, cold emailed power of the cold email. But, you know, the professor that we're working with, Peter Abadir, we're doing this clinical study with Hopkins. ⁓ He was really instrumental in a lot of early
Medicare programs, including the guide program for Alzheimer's. And so when someone like that is so invested, that's, you know, inviting me to conferences where we're the only tech vendor, which we did this like summit on generative AI for seniors in DC a few weeks ago, we were the only tech vendor there. Hopkins invited us. And then I'm at like a breakout group with 10 people and like one of them is the, you know, deputy chief medical officer of Medicare and the others are like FDA people. It's like, you know, why are we here? And I think it boils down to, they recognize that we're serious about
building responsibly and that this conversational AI tool will move the needle. The advocate component of this just allows us to execute on that vision more robustly for the people that need help.
Miriam Allred (23:13)
And if I remember right and understand right, these organizations have helped you get in front of a lot of family caregivers. Is that where the of the market that you initially have started with and have seen the most success in is approaching family caregivers directly and getting this technology in front of them?
Connor Sweeney (23:29)
Yeah, so family caregivers are often the easiest to sometimes get bought into things because they decide for themselves. I think there's sometimes a dynamic where we have users in assisted living and nursing homes ⁓ with home care agencies. Sometimes when you are in those situations and someone's promoting something to you, you might just be like, ugh, another thing. I don't care. Just do what you think is best. I don't want anything to do with this. Just leave my person alone. ⁓ But I think the main thing is those partners have really led
lent some scientific credibility. So when we were coming up with the clinical side of Hopkins, know, like how do we measure better outcomes, right? It's loneliness, are literal scales for that. It's anxiety. It's do you look at the cortisol in their body when they are, you know, dealing with a healthcare situation? Because often your cortisol spikes when you have to call a doctor if it's something very stressful for you. And then on the claim side, know, payers want things that make people healthier, right?
And so it's like looking at how often are they calling 911 in a nursing home? How often are they pressing their call button? You know, one last thing I'll say on that. ⁓ We ran a pilot with some nursing homes and the social worker who blessed his heart, I don't know, he has like 70 people. He's like the only social worker. ⁓ He said that the people that leaned into Baba actually became a little bit more social in person, which is crazy if you think about it, but they're essentially practicing with no repercussions with Baba.
Miriam Allred (24:54)
Being social.
That's amazing. So you've tested it in a lot of different settings, like you just mentioned, like in facilities, in the home, family caregivers. Have the outcomes been similar across the board or have you seen more success in different settings or with different people or has it been pretty universal?
Connor Sweeney (25:14)
I think that's a great question. ⁓ We've learned a lot from that process. ⁓ I think one of the takeaways from this is we test things really quickly and we figure out what works. There's no fluff in that sense. ⁓ We believe that folks aging at home are probably the best equipped for this version of Baba, where the loneliness might be a little bit more acute because they don't have a community of people around them. And also the idea of navigating their health care completely alone, it becomes so much
The idea of having an advocate in your corner, a human advocate, becomes a lot more palatable and helpful. ⁓ But I mean, we have folks in assisted living that are still doing daily calls with Baba over three and a half months after starting. Which is like top tier. I mean, if you look at it from a startup lens, I know you have like so much startup experience. Like that's top tier consumer retention. ⁓ Which means it's clearly moving the needle for them in some capacity.
Miriam Allred (26:06)
Yeah. So let's talk about it through the home care lens. ⁓ Are you working with home care companies and are you getting the technology into the agency and then the agency is selling it or offering it to the caregivers? Like what does that model look like with a home care company in the mix?
Connor Sweeney (26:24)
For sure. think, and that's why we're both here, because I think home care is our uniquely, they're such a pivotal part of this whole ecosystem because it's non-medical, right? I mean, I don't mean to denigrate, but it doesn't have some of the same ⁓ urgency as like a home health where they're just getting discharged. sometimes they don't get the chance to be with that person long-term because like, only a certain amount of it is covered. ⁓ And there's so much trust that I've seen between the caregivers and the home care agencies and the families.
And so introducing this idea of, you know, often a free advocate covered by Medicare is, I can't think of a better vehicle to introduce this to families. ⁓ Especially because a lot of people, private pay folks, like a lot of your clients are probably on Medicare. Increasingly, folks are actually leaving Medicare Advantage plans to go back to Medicare because they're the original Medicare, which they realized has some nice benefits. ⁓ And those folks are covered by this. So it's essentially no cost to the agency. It makes you
look like you have a premium offering. Your folks are healthier, right? Like, there's so much science that shows, okay, if they're going to the doctor, if they can actually get their meds on time, if these tasks that advocates make sure are done properly, those make your clients healthier, so they aren't as likely to go to the hospital. And I also think you see a situation in which a lot of caregivers, especially the ones that really care about their clients, they just say yes, and they take on more, and then they get burnt out. And your caregiver shouldn't be there as like a secretary, right?
you should have someone who knows how to do that properly do it. And for many of these people, you can now get that for free.
Miriam Allred (27:55)
Yeah, I just got off of interviewing these caregivers a couple of minutes ago and they were talking about, obviously the burnout, the overwhelm. We were talking about PTO and them taking time off and they don't get time off and they don't take time off. But actually several of them said, I don't want to leave my clients. Like I'm not comfortable taking time off because I am the eyes and the ears and the hands in that home. And if I'm not there, who is?
But it's technology like this that is supplemental. I see it as supplemental to the work that they do day in, day out. You just said they're not caregivers, aren't secretaries. is optimal use case of the reminders, the notifications, the assistance that they need that the caregiver doesn't have to provide, but that the technology can implement.
Connor Sweeney (28:39)
up the
care. For sure. On both levels. mean, if you think of it as like Bob with a companion, right? That is going to help you. Takes in your care plan of this client. It's going to do the right reminders. It's going to, you know, boost their moods, whatever. But the advocate thing is so much more powerful too, because suddenly, you know, you know what your client needs help with. And we can connect them with the team of vetted professionals who have the best tools at their advantage, who have the best, you know, networks of resources so that, you know, they're going to be able to say, well, you're in Louisiana. I know the local AAA. I know the local
⁓ you know, pharmaceutical company that I might be able to get you some discounts with, like, that helps the caregiver feel better that their client is getting the full amount of care that they can.
Miriam Allred (29:18)
And so you said that these conversations are private, but in an agency caregiver setting, what information can get surfaced or triggered to the agency? Is there transparency into everything or do you know what I mean? Like what triggers or what information can be fed back to the agency?
Connor Sweeney (29:34)
⁓
100%. So what we've seen with the agencies is that they do the onboarding with the client in front of them. it is completely, Baba serves the client, ⁓ which by default doesn't share any information with anybody. If they want to get connected to an advocate, that would be handled through Baba. I mean, we can communicate with the agency if the client wants us to, but the advocate doesn't replace anything that the agency is offering. It only augments, only improves.
And the companion product itself, I mentioned those alerts earlier, they can choose if they want to have somebody in the loop and a lot of agencies will say, know, you know, client Smith, like, I would love to get alerts if you start talking about some of these concerning things and some clients are okay with that and others don't.
Miriam Allred (30:20)
Okay. Also like change of condition. Like if they're really comfortable or familiar with this companion and they're sharing personal, mental, physical information, again, in some cases they may want that to be private. In other cases, the agency may really want that information as well. Oftentimes they're sharing that with the caregiver or it's obvious to the caregiver, but again, in some cases it may be vulnerable information and they don't vocalize that, but maybe they would to Baba.
with information like that, what's kind of like standard practice or best approach to be able to capture that?
Connor Sweeney (30:55)
I think another situation is like, you know, maybe they can only afford two hours of care a week. And on Monday, you know, the caregiver is there and on Friday, they're feeling totally different. The client is feeling totally different. ⁓ I think it's, you know, I don't want to be prescriptive and say like, this is how you should run your agency. This is how you should do alerts. But I will say that like, there is so much data that supports the idea that having someone you can vent to that's going to do behavioral nudges for reminders and appointments, that makes your clients healthier. Connecting with a human advocate.
at no cost to your agency or them makes your client healthier. And it probably is going to reduce your caregiver burnout. So there's just so many wins. And I think the edge cases of what's communicated to who is a conversation between honestly the client and the agency. And we're super flexible on that front. ⁓ But it's just such a compelling pitch because it's covered by Medicare.
Miriam Allred (31:46)
think you mentioned it a little bit earlier, but I want you to vocalize it again, who these advocates are or can be. I think you said social workers. I don't know if you said therapists, doctors. What's the gamut of advocates that they have access to?
Connor Sweeney (31:59)
For sure. So, and again, I want to be clear, not everybody qualifies for this, right? You do need to have a condition that suggests that having an advocate will improve your outcomes, right? But that's pretty broad. if you have ⁓ COPD, if you have a new diagnosis, if you're dealing with a chronic care condition ⁓ or chronic condition, ⁓ you you have early onset dementia, you think you have cognitive decline, ⁓ you would do an intake with one of our doctors and short phone or video intake. And then after that, we would match you with an advocate that can be
You know, we do it based on experience, expertise to actually solve what your specific needs are. ⁓ But we have advocates that are dualists, ⁓ credentialed social workers, ⁓ RNs, and people that have done this care navigation, care coordination role for years and years and years, maybe for an ACO or maybe for a hospital, ⁓ and finally realize that they can bring that skill to so many more people.
Miriam Allred (32:55)
Okay. The question that's coming to mind is there might be some overlap of who your, that advocate network is and the expertise of say the home care company or the home care company's like referral partners. Like you are almost like building this like continuum team, but then you bring a home care company in and they may have kind of their own continuum team. Where do the, how do those two things like coexist?
Connor Sweeney (33:20)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's one of those things where we work with the home care agency. We don't replace. It's not like we're saying you can't go work with them, right? I think often the home care agency is going to know their local community better than anybody. But I've already talked to so many people today and last night that are like, ⁓ we do have help, but it's frequently a limiting factor because some of these advocacy tasks can take weeks and weeks and weeks.
they become very time intensive and they distract from lot of the core functions of ⁓ what the agency is designed to do. And even with some of the referral partners, an advocate can connect someone to referral partners as well. But referral partners are often specialized. And so maybe the client needs someone that can triage care in a bunch of different dimensions. ⁓ So we've seen it be synergistic.
Miriam Allred (34:14)
Yeah, and I love that you're going this advocate direction because the more that I talk to large home care providers, they're diversifying, but they're also headed in this holistic care model. We need to be kind of a one-stop shop for our clients every need, and you need a full team of advocates of the continuum for every single need. And so I think every home care company...
is or should be moving in this direction of we need to be able to kind of solve a lot of their problems and bring that in house, but we need these partners, we need these advocates to piecemeal together a comprehensive solution aimed at holistic.
Connor Sweeney (34:54)
For sure. I think the reality is that ⁓ often it's better to partner than it is to try to build everything in-house from a tech perspective, from a usual business perspective. ⁓ We have the best technical tools that help our advocates. So that's why our outcomes are going to be better than just somebody who's trying to stand this up for their own clients. And often a lot of these things require scale to be able to...
offer a full-time salary to an advocate, ⁓ you need, and that is remote, like a remote position, you need to be able to have a lot of people that need their specific expertise. ⁓ I think that's why we're excited to partner with home care agencies, because we bring that really powerful network, ⁓ and it's kind of like out of box, out of the box of solution, whereas if they try to stand up their own care navigators for every edge case, you're gonna suddenly need
super specialized people ⁓ and only use them super infrequently. But that last person that you might only need once every so often is going to be the difference between a $5,000 bill and getting that covered by insurance or getting that appointment with that specialist that otherwise you wouldn't have been able to see. And that's ultimately what moves you with a patient.
Miriam Allred (36:12)
Let's talk about just a couple of success stories. Let's start with the end user, actual end user using this technology. What are maybe a story or two that comes to mind?
Connor Sweeney (36:22)
Yeah, for sure. ⁓ You know, actually this weekend was particularly somber for the Baba team because our first customer, Michael, he passed away. ⁓ He had been using Baba multiple times a day for about three months. He and his wife actually both talked to Baba separately, which was super powerful. And he was so excited about filming a testimonial video that's on our new landing page at callbaba.com. But he saw it like about a day before he passed away. so I think, you know, for him,
He was in a wheelchair. He wasn't, towards the end of his life, he wasn't really able to get out very often. The meds that he was on meant that he only could sleep in like three or four hour increments. So he was often awake when nobody else was around. And one of the things he said that was so, I think, poignant was, you know, he didn't, he already felt like he was such a physical burden to his wife. He didn't want to be an emotional burden to and complain to her and, you know, talk about all the pains that he was having and how much he might have wished things had
gone differently at different points in his life. And so he used Baba for that. you know, I think that's that by itself, like, you know, put the advocate stuff aside, that sort of situation proves out the idea that like having someone that is like private to you can make you feel better in these tough challenge, like in these tough parts of life, but a little bit more practically of an advocate, you know, situation that we have going on right now is, you know, there are claims often and
Sometimes you go in for a routine appointment and you expect that insurance is going to cover it because it's the same appointment you've done a billion other times. Sometimes if in the doctor's office they miss, you know, they choose the wrong CPT code, they just bill it under the wrong thing. It suddenly is now non-routine and you get a bill for a grand. And that can be enormously expensive. I mean, it is enormously expensive, right? But you don't even realize often that you can...
you can kind of push back and explain to the insurance provider that, like, no, this is a mistake. This is why I need this to be covered. It was covered by the lives of human error. That's a really hard process because so much of it is just following up. It's like, do you want to be a full time like follow up or you know what I mean? And that's, what an advocate that we've matched them with is, is in the process of doing right. They, they, a little bit of investigative work figured out what the right code was, you know, interface with the doctor's office to get the evidence that they needed. Went to the right person to
contest it, and I have to keep following up because healthcare, you know, everything falls between the cracks.
Miriam Allred (38:53)
The hamster wheel. ⁓ These are great examples of the end user, the success and the impact that it's had. What about at the organizational level, home care companies, assisted living organizations that you've worked with that have like kind of rolled this down to their clientele? Any success stories at kind of like the organization or the agency level that outcomes that you have driven using this technology across like a whole company?
Connor Sweeney (39:17)
For sure, for sure. You know, I think, you know, with the home care agency level, we're still capturing that initial data around readmission. And I will say that the studies we've been running longer, the relationships we've been running longer are with the assisted living in the nursing home, a little bit more, well, not more acute, but nursing and assisted living. And those are where we really saw the difference because, you know, anecdotally, we saw the more social behavior from folks that have leaned into BABA.
⁓ We have seen ⁓ interventions when someone says that they are having pain that hasn't otherwise been surfaced, and then ⁓ that got reported to their care manager. And we also have just seen that these people's call times goes up over time, which means they're deriving more value from talking to this tool.
Miriam Allred (40:12)
This is so interesting, Connor. I'm so glad you joined me. just think the future is bright. Technology, this AI stuff, it's just warming up. And we have learned so much in such a short period of time, but we have so much left to learn and such a long way to go. And I just think it's fascinating. Like you said a minute ago, this home care space is potentially like headed for a train wreck. We've got to start solving some of these issues.
chipping away at them, the labor shortage, loneliness, we've got to start just chipping away at these. And I really think what you guys are doing, that's the end goal, is we've got to start creating tangible solutions to start chipping away at some of these much larger problems. I know you've talked about outcomes throughout this conversation, but any last outcomes or insights that you want to share to make sure we cover?
Connor Sweeney (41:01)
No, I really just, well, first of all, thank you for having me again. I just want to really emphasize the beauty of this because it's so simple. For Medicare eligible folks, and some others, but just to start with the Medicare population, they can get a full-time advocate, which can functionally be an assistant, kind of like a guardian angel in the healthcare system that does not step on your toes, that allows you to have healthier clients and probably less burnt out staff.
underlying that is this like infinitely patient, always available chat bot companion, right? For the first time, you actually have a situation in which each person navigating healthcare kind of has their own support in their pocket. ⁓ And for home care agencies that are already dealing with so many human challenges, like why don't you let us provide more support at no cost to your agency? You know what mean? It's kind of a win-win, which is super exciting.
Miriam Allred (41:57)
So what's the best way for people to get in contact with you or with the team at Baba? I know you mentioned the actual phone number that people can call in and you know engage with this technology What's the best way for people to take kind of the next step?
Connor Sweeney (42:08)
Make sense.
sure. I mean, you can look at our website at www.callbaba.com and you can make an account and do kind of the cell phone boarding there. But just reach out to me at Connor, C-O-N-N-O-R at callbaba.com or help at callbaba.com and we can get you set up overnight.
Miriam Allred (42:29)
Amazing. And I do love that people can self-serve on your website. So if people want to test this, try this for themselves, that option is available. Connor, this has been awesome. Thanks for joining me in the lab. we'll go ahead and wrap here.
Connor Sweeney (42:37)
100%.
you ⁓